[talon88]

"Perhaps financial renumeration, while fair, isn't entirely necessary"

Is it that in your world, eating and paying the rent isn't necessary either?

'Many' creative people sounds like some programmers, which is somewhat small subset of all creatives. I'd be surprised if the majority of creative people — artists, writers, actors, and more — would happily go about saying that financial renumeration doesn't matter to them.

Destin, for example, puts a lot of effort into his videos and his work. Financial renumeration not being necessarily inevitably means Destin does something else for the majority of his time and does Smarter Ever Day less (if at all). This is almost certainly the same for every other artist out there. Sure — maybe all art isn't necessary. Maybe some of it is crap. But saying that being paid to be creative isn't necessarily means that you get very little art, if at all.

[belorn]

Those old claims in favor of copyright has been either partially or fully been disproved, yet it continue to be repeated as the Single and Only Truth.

Financial renumeration per copy is not the only method to have artist eating and paying rent. Far from being the only way, historically it is just the most recent method and one which has strong down sides to it. The old way was simply to pay an artist so they can continue to create, which some artists has returned by using services like Patreon and get paid in order to creating more content. They are eating and paying the rent, and copyright aren't doing squat.

There is also substation proof that art is created regardless of renumeration. Several studies have look into why people create art, and none of them marks renumeration as the primary reason. Surveys show instead that people create art to express themselves, to improve their skills, to social interact with others, and to make their other other peoples lives better. They do however need time to be artists, and this is where the partial truth exist in. Money enable them to spend their time on art, and copyright provide one if the many way to create that money.

[jessaustin]

But saying that being paid to be creative isn't necessarily [sic] means that you get very little art, if at all.

Humans have always created art. Modern conceptions of intellectual property have not always existed. Why would art depend on that?

[saidajigumi]

Because here, in the post-industrial world, it's very hard to make a living from one-off works of craftsmanship. That didn't used to be the case, when that was the only way to get things made. It happens today, but the economics make it an unusual situation. The labor involved forces the per-unit prices to be stratospheric, vastly limiting the market.

But we have an alternative: leverage digital technology's nigh-zero marginal costs and charge very reasonable prices to large numbers of people.

The idea that because the marginal cost is zero that the cost should be zero is a horribly greedy devaluation of creative labor.

So I'm all for new economic structures, but AFAICT no one's stepped up with a better way that's actually proven to allow creative folks to continue to make a living. (Or that even has a snowball's chance once tried outside of armchair philosophizing.)

One last thought, since it's universally sizable corporations who control those digital distribution channels... do we REALLY want to cede even more power over content to these entities? If we just drop IP laws, that further enriches these corps at the cost of individual and/or small creators. That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

[hackuser]

> If we just drop IP laws, that further enriches these corps at the cost of individual and/or small creators. That makes no sense to me whatsoever.

A good question, but I'm not sure. Those large corporations produce a lot of IP; maybe the small guy will benefit more than the big guy. Remember we're all stealing from and building on each other's IP. Imagine if all the proprietary software was open source, from OS X to Office to SunOS to SAS to Mathematica to Photoshop to AutoCAD to Google's search algorithms.

It would be a dream for many to be able to study, learn from, and reuse that code. It would be like the IP of the academic world, which generally is open and reusable by others.

[raquo]

> Imagine if all the proprietary software was open source, from OS X to Office to SunOS to SAS to Mathematica to Photoshop to AutoCAD to Google's search algorithms

Most of this wouldn't even exist if it had to be open-source from the start.

[hackuser]

I agree that's a possibility, and it's the obvious concern. I'm trying to challenge our (mine included) common notion.

My 'radical idea' is that maybe they would exist. What if we had a system that provided a payment mechanism but did away with IP restrictions, for example? Consider how most of science is funded and shared, for example. Massive projects like the LHC and space probes are funded, and their data is openly shared. I'm not saying that the exact same system would work for software, but that there are other systems that work very well.

I'd expect that with 'open' technology, innovation would be faster and products would be better, as everyone could use and learn from best-in-class tech.

[lmm]

On the contrary, most of these things started as either university research projects or just someone playing around, and were only monetized later.

[incompatible]

Abolishing copyright would be a good idea in my opinion, but it wouldn't make proprietary software open source.

[quadrangle]

Abolish patents and copyright and mandate source-release for published works along with prohibition of DRM

[thaumasiotes]

> Because here, in the post-industrial world, it's very hard to make a living from one-off works of craftsmanship. That didn't used to be the case

Yes it did; that was always the case. There's no requirement that art be produced by people who need the money.

[lmm]

When the only way to hear a symphony was to hire an orchestra to play it every time, it was easy for a musician to make a living playing symphonies. Now that you can record one playthrough once and reproduce it for free, it's much harder - supply goes up, so the price goes down.

Substitute playing music for your creative endeavour of choice.

[rjaco31]

That's bullshit. Most of the greatest music compositors through History were broke as shit, even when being famous while being alive.

[hassy]

Patronage has existed for a long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patronage#Arts

[nathan_long]

> Humans have always created art. Modern conceptions of intellectual property have not always existed. Why would art depend on that?

Eh? The people who painted on cave walls surely didn't get paid, but they also surely didn't spent much of their time painting. Michaelangelo got paid, painted full time, and achieved mastery. He didn't need IP because copying a painting required a painter. Whatever you think of IP, it's a modern idea to address a modern situation.

Yes, there will always be art. But mastery and time are linked, and time and money are linked. If you want full-time artists, they need money somehow.

[baddox]

> Is it that in your world, eating and paying the rent isn't necessary either?

Of course it is, and thus figuring out an occupation or business model that allows you to eat and pay rent is important.

[gknoy]

While that sounds great, I suspect that there are many people with the skill and interest to be professional artists who, if they were spending their days writing code or welding or $JOB, would be uninterested / unable to dedicate resources (time, money) towards Creating Things in the degree that they can when creating such things is their full-time job.

tl;dr: There should be a way for creative people to make Creating Art the occupation that pays them money for rent/food/etc.

[hackuser]

Based on very limited knowledge, I believe that historically and now, most artists have had 'day jobs'. Very few have earned enough from their art.

Come to think of it, to what degree does IP protect only the most successful artists, and may even be a net hinderence to most.

[baddox]

There's also undoubtedly lots of interesting and potentially profitable art and innovation that is impossible because of those IP laws. I can't confidently say that one set is more worthy than the other.

[anon4]

Much less art being produced is preferable to having a fucked up legal system.